Gholamreza Khosravi scheduled to be executed tomorrow morning

HRANA News Agency – Gholamreza Khosravi, the death row political prisoner has been transferred to the solitary confinement in order to be executed.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani who was recently transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj has been transferred to the solitary confinements of this prison in order to be executed.
The authorities have asked him to inform his family to go to the prison for the last visit.
“The fact that he is granted a visit out of normal schedule proves that he is going to be executed. Even after some of the family members visited him, they were told to call the others to go to the prison as well.” Said one of Gholamreza Khosravi’s relatives
“He has been transferred to the solitary confinement since this morning.” He said
“Mr. Alavi, the intelligence officer has told him that he will be executed soon.” An informed source had told HRANA
Mr. Khosravi, a political prisoner of the eightieth, was arrested in Kerman, 2007, and was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and 3 years suspended prison in charge of relation with MEK, but during serving this sentence, according to an unlawful process, his case again was activated and he is convicted to death penalty. This court verdict was verified by the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan has been freed and is back in U.S. custody
after nearly five years of captivity, U.S. officials said Saturday.

The officials said the Taliban agreed to turn over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for the release of five Afghan detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The transfers happened after a week of intense negotiations mediated by the government of Qatar, which will take custody of the Afghans.

No news on condition of Sunni youth arrested four days ago

HRANA News Agency – There has been no news on the condition or whereabouts of a Sunni youth who was arrested in Iran four days ago.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), 21-year old Abdol Ghani Wahid was arrested on Sunday by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence in a raid on his father’s home in the village of Tanbalan in the Zarabad district, Sistan-Baluchestan province of Iran.
According to reports, agents told the family that they had ‘only a few questions’ to ask Abdol Ghani, and that he would be returned after they had finished.
After several hours passed with no news, his family visited the offices of the Ministry of Intelligence in Chabahar and Konorak to enquire about his whereabouts. However, officials denied that they had arrested him.

MEXICO CITY – Rewards totaling 70.5 million pesos ($5.4 million) are being offered for information on the whereabouts of 27 missing people and the arrests of those behind the disappearances, the Attorney General’s Office said.

The names of 27 missing people and one murder victim were listed in 20 reward announcements published by the AG’s office on Wednesday in the Official Daily of the Federation.

A reward of 1.5 million pesos (about $116,645) will be paid for information that helps authorities find each of the missing people, with the reward money totaling 40.5 million pesos ($3.1 million), the AG’s office said.

The same sum is being offered for information that leads to the identification and arrest of those responsible for the 20 cases of disappearances, some of which involve more than one missing person, the AG’s office said.

The cases deal with the disappearances of eight women and 19 men, as well as the murder of a woman, the AG’s office said.

The investigations are being handled by special units that deal with kidnappings and organized crime groups.

Rewards will be paid to individuals providing information that helps solve each case, the AG’s office said.

BOGOTA – The kidnappers who grabbed the 10-year-old daughter of a Colombian police commander released the girl hours later, authorities said.

The daughter of Inspector Victor Cantoñi, police chief in the southwestern town of Padilla, was freed Thursday night in the nearby community of Toribio.

Alejandra Cantoñi was picked up by members of the Indigenous Guard taking part in the search for her along with along with police and army units, the mayor of the town of Guachene, Francisco Paz, told radio stations.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the release of the minor on his Twitter account and said that an investigation is underway to find the perpetrators, though the army and local authorities attributed the kidnapping to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The minor was abducted by armed men Thursday morning at the entrance to Jorge Eliecer Gaitan School in Guachene.

The army blamed the kidnapping on a FARC guerrilla who goes by the alias of “Mordisco.”

The FARC, which ended Wednesday at midnight a nine-day truce declared on the occasion of the May 25 presidential election, announced in 2012 that it had renounced kidnapping for ransom.

Friday, May 30, 2014

BEIRUT, Lebanon: The death toll from Syrian air raids on rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo has topped 40 over a 24-hour period, a monitoring group said Wednesday.Barrel bombs killed 22 people Tuesday in the eastern districts of Hay Qataneh, Tariq Al-Bab, Bustan Al-Qasr, Bani Zeid, Mghayer and Lairamoun, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.Another 21 people died on Wednesday in another wave of barrel bomb strikes on Mghayer, said the Britain-based group, which compiles its information from a network of medics and opposition activists on the ground.Nine children figured among the dead, the Observatory added, warning that the toll could rise because “many people are in serious condition and there must bodies under the rubble.”

BOGOTA – The 10-year-old daughter of a police chief in the southwestern town of Padilla was kidnapped Thursday by a group of armed men, Colombian authorities said.

The abduction occurred about 7 a.m. in the town of Guachene, near Padilla, when the girl was going to school and was intercepted by the kidnappers in the presence of several of her friends.

In remarks to Blu Radio, Guachene Mayor Francisco Paz accused the FARC guerrilla group of the crime, “by the route (the kidnappers) took” in their flight, although the national ombudman’s office said that groups of drug traffickers are also active in that part of Cauca province.

When news of the kidnapping became known, residents of Guachene came to the area with machetes and sticks but did not find any of those responsible.

Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said on Twitter that an elite police anti-kidnapping unit “is leading the search for little Alejandra in Cauca.”

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) concluded on Wednesday at midnight a unilateral nine-day cease-fire it had declared so as not to disrupt the May 25 presidential elections, but in 2012 they had supposedly renounced kidnapping for ransom.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Indore: A 27-year-old girl from Bhopal lost her right foot after she
was stuck between the platform and the train as she tried to board the train
while she was talking on the phone.

This tragic incident happened on platform no 5 at Indore station on Friday
evening at around 5:40 pm. Nishi Niranjan Kumar was stuck for about 20 minutes
before the GRP jawans pulled her out. She was in Indore for a job interview.
While her brother Mukesh Kumar boarded the train, Nishi was talking on the phone
and tried to board the train when it started moving. It was then when she lost
her grip of the handle of the gate and fell in the gap between the platform and
the train.

The passengers in the train pulled the chain and tried to help the girl.
The GRP jawans then pulled her out and rushed to the hospital from where she was
later referred to a private hospital.

MEXICO CITY – Two police officers were beaten to death and a civilian was fatally shot when an operation targeting illegal logging went badly wrong, Mexican authorities said.

The incident unfolded Tuesday in Tlalamac, a community in the mountains of the central state of Mexico.State police were accompanying personnel from the Probosque forest service to investigate reports of illegal logging, the Mexico state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

Under circumstances that remain unclear, an area man was wounded by gunfire and his neighbors reacted by attacking the Probosque employees and police, the state AG’s office said.

Within minutes, the police found themselves surrounded by dozens of residents armed with sticks, stones and firearms. The mob seized five of the cops and dragged them to a nearby residence, where the officers were severely beaten.

More than 150 state police rushed to the scene and demanded the release of their comrades.

When the residents refused, the police mounted a rescue operation, the official statement said.

Besides the two officers killed, eight others suffered significant injuries, while the civilian whose shooting ignited the clash died on the way to the hospital.

The state AG’s office vowed that those responsible for the violence would be subjected to “the full weight” of the law.

Saeed Abedini beaten in hospital and returned to prison

HRANA News Agency- Saeed Abedini, Reverend prisoner who had been transferred to the Dey Hospital was beaten by transfer officers and was returned to prison.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Reverend Saeed Abedini who was admitted to the Dey hospital for the last two months, after being beaten in the hospital, was returned to Rajai Shahr prison, Karaj city.
The reverend’s wife says: “The transfer officers warned him that they are going to keep him there until Iran’s regime problem with 5+1 gets solved.”
The officers attacked him with electrical shocks that caused bruises on his body and he also got internal bleeding because of being beaten by them.

His wife said to HRANA: “The internal bleeding occurred because of hits.”
Saeed Abedini, Iranian-American citizen was detained at his parental home in mid-September 2012 when he came back to Iran.
Reverend Abedini was convicted to 8 years imprisonment on charge of forming and establishing house churches to disrupt national security on the mid-February 2013 by the Revolutionary court, branch 26. In result of appeal against the court verdict, the case was referred to Tehran County’s Appeals Court, branch 36, and this branch verified the previous court’s verdict.

An Iranian court has sentenced eight people to a combined 123 years in prison for various charges including insulting the country's supreme leader on Facebook. The sentencing is the latest in a recent crackdown on Internet freedom in the country.
The eight, who were reportedly all Facebook users, were arrested last year by the Cyber Unit of the Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Court in Tehran doled out prison sentences ranging from seven to 20 years for charges of blasphemy, propaganda against the Iranian state, spreading lies, and insulting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The arrests were first reported by the opposition news agency Kaleme.

For Iranian human rights experts, the sentences are unusually harsh and could signal an intention to warn other Iranian netizens.
"The ruling [...] is clearly intended to spread fear among Internet users in Iran, and dissuade Iranians from stepping outside strict state controls on cyberspace," wrote the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran in a statement. One of the eight, a British woman named Roya Saberinejad Nobakht, received a sentence of 20 years in prison. Her husband said in April that she had been detained in Iran over comments she had made to friends on Facebook and in online chat, calling Iran's government too controlling and "too Islamic," as reported at the time by the Manchester Evening News.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A pregnant woman was stoned to death Tuesday by her own family outside a courthouse in the Pakistani city of Lahore for marrying the man she loved.

The woman was killed while on her way to court to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband. Her father was promptly arrested on murder charges, police investigator Rana Mujahid said, adding that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in this "heinous crime."

Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, and hundreds of women are murdered every year in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior.

Stonings in public settings, however, are extremely rare. Tuesday's attack took place in front of a crowd of onlookers in broad daylight. The courthouse is located on a main downtown thoroughfare.
A police officer, Naseem Butt, identified the slain woman as Farzana Parveen, 25, and said she had married Mohammad Iqbal, 45, against her family's wishes after being engaged to him for years.
Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal, which the couple was contesting, said her lawyer, Mustafa Kharal. He said she was three months pregnant.

Nearly 20 members of Parveen's extended family, including her father and brothers, had waited outside the building that houses the high court of Lahore. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the relatives fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal, her lawyer said.

When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site, according to Mujahid and Iqbal, the slain woman's husband.

Mohammad Iqbal, right, husband of Farzana Parveen, 25, sits in an ambulance next to the body of his …

Iqbal said he started seeing Parveen after the death of his first wife, with whom he had five children.

"We were in love," he told The Associated Press. He alleged that the woman's family wanted to fleece money from him before marrying her off.

"I simply took her to court and registered a marriage," infuriating the family, he said.

Parveen's father surrendered after the attack and called his daughter's murder an "honor killing," Butt said.
"I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it," Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.
Mujahid said the woman's body was handed over to her husband for burial.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honor killings in 2013.

But even Pakistanis who have tracked violence against women expressed shock at the brutal and public nature of Tuesday's slaying.

"I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed outside a courthouse," said Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist.

He said Pakistanis who commit violence against women are often acquitted or handed light sentences because of poor police work and faulty prosecutions.

"Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don't properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers, or they are acquitted," he said.

Bharatpur (Rajasthan): In a shocking incident, a pregnant woman was
forced to deliver a baby in standing position in open as did not have money to
pay a bribe of Rs. 500 asked by hospital authorities
for a bed. Tragically, the baby hits the floor and died.

According to Rajasthan Patrika, incident sparked outrage. The family of the
woman protested against hospital authorities and refused to take the body of the
baby.

Sitting at the hospital gate with the body of the new-born, people took to
sloganeering.

New Delhi: A female lawyer and two activists were allegedly beaten
up by a group of persons at the Tis Hazari court here on Friday when they went
there in connection with a case filed against an advocate by a woman from
North-East alleging molestation.

The incident took place when a 38-year-old woman from Nagaland, who was
molested on Thursday night allegedly by a lawyer outside Delhi Vishwavidyalay
metro station, came to the court with her advocate and some social activists to
record her statement in connection with the incident.

A senior police official said, "We have received the case of a North
Eastern lawyer along with two others being attacked."

According to Noshi, the victim's lawyer, the accused and some of his
associates, said to be lawyers, beat them up. The crowd also followed and
threatened them.

Noshi, who practices at Saket court, said that she asked the two men
accompanying her to escape and herself took another route thinking that the
advocates following her would not harm her because she was a co-worker.

However, the group ran after her for a while after which they slapped her
and threatened her if she pursued the case further.

Rakka, Syria: A young girl was stoned to death by militant groups in Syria
for operating Facebook account.

Fatoum Al-Jassem was taken to a Sharia court after she was caught using the
social networking website, in Rakka, Syria. The Sharia court declared that using
a Facebook account amounts to adultery and the girl should be punished by
stoning, according to a news report published in Iran's FARS
news agency which quoted a report published in Arabic-language
Al-Rai Al-Youm.

The members of the Al-Qaeda group in Iraq, also known
as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were behind the incident.

The ISIS, or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is an hardline Islamic group
based in Iraq. They have been fighting an active war against Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the government forces in Iraq.

The group's ideology is based on extremely strict interpretation of
Islam.

It quoted Ruhollah Momen Nasab, an official with the paramilitary Basij force, as saying that the judge also ordered the two apps blocked. It is highly unlikely that Zuckerberg would appear in an Iranian court since there is no extradition treaty between Iran and the United States. Some Iranian courts have in recent years issued similar rulings that could not be carried out.

Another Iranian court last week had ordered Instagram blocked over privacy concerns. However, users in the capital, Tehran, still could access both applications around noon Tuesday. In Iran, websites and Internet applications have sometimes been reported blocked but remained operational.

Facebook is already officially banned in the country, along with other social websites like Twitter and YouTube as well as their mobile apps. However some senior leaders like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are active on Twitter, and many Iranians use proxy servers to access banned websites and applications.

While top officials have unfettered access to social media, Iran's youth and technology-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls.

The administration of moderate President Hassan Rouhani is opposed to blocking such websites before authorities create local alternatives. Social media has offered a new way for him and his administration to reach out to the West as it negotiates with world powers over the country's contested nuclear program.

"We should see the cyber world as an opportunity," Rouhani said last week, according to the official IRNA news agency. "Why are we so shaky? Why don't we trust our youth?"

Hard-liners, meanwhile, accuse Rouhani of failing to stop the spread of what they deem as "decadent" Western culture in Iran.

Monday, May 26, 2014

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Miley Cyrus obtained a temporary restraining order Friday against an Arizona man who was recently detained by police while trying to meet the singer-actress.

A Los Angeles judge granted Cyrus the stay-away order against Devon Meek after Cyrus' lawyers filed court documents stating that Meek, 24, believes the singer is communicating to him through her songs.

Los Angeles police arrested the man from the southeastern Arizona city of Sierra Vista on May 16, and he was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he remains. Meek has said he will continue to try to meet Cyrus once he is released, according to filings by Cyrus' attorneys and a police detective.

Meek was arrested outside a property he believed is owned by Cyrus, but the documents don't specify the location.

Detective Rosibel Smith wrote in a sworn statement that Meek told officers they should shoot him in the head if he couldn't meet Cyrus.

Smith wrote that a police officer who interviewed Meek "informed me that Mr. Meek stated that when he is released from the hospital, he will not stop seeking Ms. Cyrus and that he will continue to go to Ms. Cyrus' residence until Ms. Cyrus accepts him or he dies."

A hearing to extend the restraining order for three years is scheduled for June 16.

There is no declaration from Cyrus in the filing. The pop star rose to fame as the star of the TV show "Hannah Montana" and has recently postponed several concerts while she recovers from her representatives have said is an allergic reaction to antibiotics.

Bahman Tafazoli was arrested and detained in Dehdasht's prison due to his activities in Facebook.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), A Dehdashti resident, Bahman Tafazoli, was detained by the IRGC Intelligence after being summoned to the intelligence headquarters of IRGC due to his activities in Facebook, on 20th February.

According to his relatives, he was sent to Gachsaran prison and currently he is kept there in indeterminate condition.

In addition, the news about arrestment of three other residents of Dehdasht, with the names of, Afshin Zemanati, Reza Tejareh and Davood Afrooz was published through virtual networks. They were arrested because of political activities oncyberspace.

Police Officer

Jair Cabrera

Police Officer Jair Cabrera was shot and killed while making a traffic stop near the intersection of Chaparral Road and Pima Road, on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, at 3:05 am.

The vehicle pulled into a gas station near the border with Scottsdale city. A subject armed with a rifle exited and opened fire, striking Officer Cabrera before he exited his patrol car. Three subjects fled the scene on foot but were all apprehended.

Officer Cabrera was transported to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Officer Cabrera had served for seven years with the Salt River Police Department. He was survived by his parents, brother, and girlfriend.

Please contact the following agency to send condolences or to obtain funeral arrangements:

An Indian house driver who had arrived in the Kingdom a week ago was shot dead by his Saudi employer’s son in Makkah on Saturday. “The shooter, who was in his twenties, suffered psychological problems,” said Aati Al-Qurashi, Makkah police spokesman. “The driver died after sustaining several gunshot wounds.”A source told Arab News: “ Anas Pudvilikalvi, 24, from Kerala in India, arrived in Makkah a week ago to work as a family driver. The driver went to Taif on Friday night, along with the sponsor’s family, and returned to Makkah the same night, after which the fateful incident occurred,” The body has been shifted to King Faisal Hospital in Makkah.The shooter is in custody.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), few days ago, Ehsan Sadeghi, Maryam Asadi, Ali Arfa', Vahid Safi, Amin Mazloomi and two more people were arrested in an attack to a church in south of Tehran, by security forces.

An informed source, based on the available evidence, introduced Mr. Sadeghi and Safi as the Afghan citizens who have been resided in Iran and newly converted to Christianity.

According to this report, some of the new converted to Christianity people who gathered in order to celebrate the Easter in Ms. Asadi's house were arrested by security forces. The forces did not have uniform and their behavior was very insulting. After the rush, security forces started investigation and capturing books, notes and other educational stuff.

According to the most updated information regarding this case, after numerous follow up and search of some the families of arrestees to the police, the office of intelligence service and judiciaries, they have informed that this arrest was carried out by intelligence fairs of a military organization and just after the end of investigations they would be able to contact them. They have also warned that they should not publicize and interview with anonymous people.

This source added that the family of Mazloomi could talk to their child.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

BEIRUT – An attack on an election rally for President Bashar al-Assad left 39 people dead and 205 injured, Syrian authorities said Friday.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier that at least 21 people died and 30 others were wounded in Thursday night’s mortar attack by an Islamist rebel group.

Describing the assault in the southern city of Daraa as a “terrorist attack,” Syrian state television aired images of the dead and wounded lying on the ground in pools of blood.

Assad is widely expected to win a third seven-year term in office in the June 3 contest against Maher Abdul-Hafiz Hajjar, a lawmaker and member of the legal opposition, and Hassan bin Abdullah al-Nouri, a former minister of administrative and parliamentary affairs.

The strike in Daraa was the first mortar attack by the insurgents on an event related to the election campaign, which kicked off on May 11.

Assad has made frequent public appearances in recent weeks and focused his campaign on national unity in Syria, where a three-year civil war has left more than 160,000 dead.

The mortar attack came just hours after government forces broke a 13-month rebel siege of the main prison in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, ending the insurgents’ attempt to free thousands of inmates housed there.

SAN JUAN – FBI agents on Thursday arrested 16 current and former members of the Puerto Rico Police Department on corruption charges.

The accused, among whom are two sergeants, arrested civilians and seized drugs from them which they later sold, U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez said.

“The criminal action today dismantles an entire network of officers who, we allege, used their badges and their guns not to uphold the law, but to break it,” said Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General David O’Neil said.

The suspects, Rodriguez-Velez said, “not only betrayed the citizens they were sworn to protect, they also betrayed the thousands of honest, hard-working law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to keep us safe.”

“Today is a sad day for Puerto Rico, where a group of police officers allegedly disgraced their uniform and are a shame to the Police of Puerto Rico,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Carlos Cases said.

The arrests came a day after the leaders of Puerto Rico’s House and Senate, Jaime Perello and Eduardo Bhatia, respectively, met with new PRPD chief Jose Caldero to monitor the process of reforming the troubled force.

The reform of the PRPD was launched after the judicial agreement reached between San Juan and the Department of Justice as a result of a 2011 report by the ACLU asserting that between 2005 and 2010 almost 2,000 local police officers committed assorted crimes.

One year earlier, the FBI had undertaken in Puerto Rico one of the largest operations in its history against police corruption linked with drug trafficking.

Friday, May 23, 2014

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The so-called "Pillowcase Rapist" who attacked at least 40 women in the 1970s and 1980s will be freed and allowed to live in a remote Southern California desert area despite a host of vocal protests, a judge ordered Friday.

Christopher Evans Hubbart, 63, must be released from a state facility by July 7, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown ruled.

Hubbart will be permitted to rent a small house near Palmdale, some 45 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

"Now we are preparing for his arrival," said District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who spent months fighting Hubbart's release. "We will do everything within our authority to protect the residents of Los Angeles County from this dangerous predator."

Hubbart will wear a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week GPS monitor on his ankle and will be accompanied by security people every time he goes out in public for the first six months to a year of his release, Lacey said. He will be transported to therapy sessions twice a week.

HAVANA – Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez on Wednesday said on Twitter that the island’s communist government locally blocked her new online publication 14ymedio by redirecting viewers to another Web page.

“We’ve been born and we’re already having our first ‘attack’ on digital networks from #Cuba on the URL http://14ymedio.com redirected to another site,” Sanchez said.

The new online publication could be accessed in Cuba early Wednesday morning but soon when users entered the site’s Web address they were directed to a page called “Yoanislandia” full of articles by government bloggers and journalists and several texts critical of Sanchez, Efe was able to determine.

As the blogger said on Twitter, one can currently only access 14ymedio using an anonymous “proxy.”

“Bad strategy by the Cuban government to redirect our Web site ... from #Cuba. Nothing is more attractive than what is prohibited,” Sanchez wrote in another tweet.

Sanchez launched 14ymedio on Wednesday as a new online newspaper in which she says she intends to talk about the Cuban reality with a “commitment to the truth, freedom and the defense of human rights,” and take up the challenge to reach readers both on and outside the island.

The daily, available at www.14ymedio.com, said it is being launched in digital format “in one of the countries with the least Internet connectivity on the entire planet.”

The new online paper says that it is the fruit of the “effort of independent journalism in Cuba to counteract the monopoly of the official media” adding that “we drink from the experience of other publications born in societies that moved toward democracy and where the press played a role in the formation of the civic conscience and in the securing of freedoms.”

In a text published on her famous blog Generacion Y and inserted onto the main page of 14ymedio, Sanchez said that by starting up the online newspaper she was fulfilling a “dream” of launching a project that has been her “obsession” for more than four years.

May 23-24, 2014 CamelopardalidsThe peak night of the predicted Camelopardalid meteor shower is May 23-24, 2014. Because of the time predicted for the meteor display, observers in southern Canada and the continental U.S. are especially well positioned to see the meteors in the early morning hours of May 24 (or late at night on May 23). Will the predictions hold true? They are not always 100% reliable, which is why, no matter where you are on Earth, this shower is worth a try around the night of May 23-24. The meteors will radiate from the constellation Camelopardalis (camelopard), a very obscure northern constellation. Its name is derived from early Rome, where it was thought of as a composite creature, described as having characteristics of both a camel and a leopard. Nowadays we call such a creature a giraffe! Since meteor in annual showers take their names from the constellation from which they appear to radiate – and since this meteor shower might become an annual event – people are already calling it the Camelopardalids. This constellation – radiant point of the May 2014 meteor shower – is in the northern sky, close to the north celestial pole, making this meteor shower better for the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern Hemisphere. Models suggest that the best viewing hours for this new meteor shower are between 6 and 8 UTC on May 24. That is between 2 and 4 a.m. EDT (1-3 a.m. CDT and so on … translate to your time zone here).

MEXICO CITY – Five people were arrested in an operation to free 35 captives in the southern state of Guerrero, a Mexican federal official said.

The rescue was carried out May 13 near the village of Huasquial, anti-kidnapping task force coordinator Renato Sales said.

Marines, Guerrero state police and agents from the federal Attorney General’s Office found 24 men and 11 women with their hands bound, he said.

The four men and a woman guarding the captives were taken into custody.

Sales said the suspects confessed to being part of a criminal outfit active in the Tierra Caliente region, which straddles the states of Guerrero, Michoacan and Mexico.

The captives, including a pregnant woman and a minor, were taken to a secure location where they received food, medical attention and psychological counseling, he said, adding that a number of them were suffering from malnutrition, anemia and untreated injuries.

Several had been in captivity for as long as six months, according to sources in the AG’s office, who said the gang continued to hold some captives even after their families paid ransoms.

Arrest warrants have been issued for four other suspects, the sources said.

This move is an absolute masterpiece of style over substance. The girls were not from Chad, but from Nigeria. Does the U.S. government have any reason to believe that they are now in Chad? No, this isn’t based on any new intelligence. These 80 troops will fly reconnaissance missions to look for the girls. But what does a kidnapped schoolgirl who has been forcibly converted to Islam and married to a jihadist look like from the air? They know the girls have been dispersed, which only emphasizes that this initiative is about as useful as Michelle Obama’s hashtag campaign.“80 U.S. troops in Chad will aid search for abducted Nigerian girls,” by Faith Karimi and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN, May 22, 2014:

BUENOS AIRES – Argentine police on Wednesday busted a band of drug traffickers who sold marijuana and cocaine at a “narco-pizzeria,” hiding the illegal merchandise in the food and alerting their drug customers to that fact by using the name of actress Dolores Fonzi, authorities said.

The band ran a shop in Lanus, on the outskirts of the capital, where police found 83 grams of cocaine, 83 grams of marijuana, a revolver, a shotgun, photos of the actress and 2,500 pesos ($310) in cash.

Lanus police chief Fabian Perroni told reporters that three people were arrested – two men and a woman – and they “used the pizzeria as a front ... (and that) they had classified their customers” into two groups, one group to whom they offered the drug menu and the other to whom they showed a “clean” menu.

On the drug menu, a “Dolores Fonzi empanada,” a type of meat-filled pastry or pie, cost 50 pesos ($6) while the “special” mozzarella pizza served up with three small bags of drugs cost 100 pesos ($12).

The police chief said that the actress, the wife of Mexican actor Gabriel Garcia Bernal, could file suit against the owners of the pizza shop for linking her name and her image with drug sales.

Last month, Fonzi had expressed her support for the law legalizing marijuana in Uruguay and admitted that she was a regular pot user.

GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemalan police on Tuesday rescued safe and sound an 18-month-old girl who had been kidnapped last week in a neighborhood on the northern outskirts of the country’s capital.

The little girl was found inside a home in the Santa Faz neighborhood of Chinautla, but the abductors managed to escape after they noticed the presence of law enforcement personnel in the vicinity, police said in a statement.

The criminals, and authorities are not certain precisely how many of them were involved in the plot, escaped via a ravine, according to the terse police report.

The child’s kidnapping was reported on May 13 by the father, who said that it occurred while she was playing in the yard of their residence in Alameda, a poor zone in northern Guatemala City.

Police did not specify who was with the baby at the time of the abduction or the circumstances under which the crime occurred.

The authorities said only that the criminals were demanding 50,000 quetzales ($6,476) in cash for the child’s return without mentioning whether or not anything was paid to them.

After her rescue, the little girl was returned to her relatives, the police communique said.

JERUSALEM: An investigation of a fatal West Bank clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian stone-throwers indicates that troops used live fire without justification and in violation of the army’s and one was wounded in last week’s confrontation. Palestinian hospital officials haverules of engagement, an Israeli human rights group said Tuesday.

Two Palestinian teens were killed said the three were shot in the upper body by live rounds. The Israeli military has denied live fire was used in last Thursday’s clash on the outside of the West Bank town of Beitouniya and that troops only shot rubber-coated metal pellets. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a senior army spokesman, said an investigation is continuing.

CULIACAN, Mexico – A man suspected of working for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman, who was arrested earlier this year, was gunned down inside a supermarket in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, officials said.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Riyadh police and the Philippine Embassy are jointly investigating the case of a 23-year-old Filipino maid, who suffered severe back burns when the mother of her male employer allegedly poured boiling water on her body. In Manila, Vice President Jejomar Binay on Tuesday said the Philippine government will pursue the filing of charges against the employer.Binay, who serves as Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers’ (OFWs) Concerns, said in a statement that he has ordered the Special Concerns Unit of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to coordinate with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh to get updates on the case and pursue the necessary legal actions.According to a new revelation by the victim’s relative, Normiah Alagasi, the incident happened on May 4 at the residence of the employer’s mother, whose name has been withheld, when she asked for a cup of coffee, leading to the bizarre altercation.The employers are said to be Yemeni nationals. Arab News called the Philippine Embassy to confirm these facts, but was unable to make contact or get an official statement on the case. Relatives of the Filipino maid appealed that their cousin be given both moral and physical damages rights, as these injuries will remain a life-long nightmare for the victim who left her two children and spent money to work abroad so that she could help her family back home.Normiah was anxious about the information given to the police investigating the case by a clinical doctor, where the victim was first brought for treatment. She said that her cousin was forced by her employer to give a different version of the incident in which it appeared that she poured boiling water on her own body accidentally. She added that the clinic had even helped rescue her cousin from her abusive employer.Hundreds of OFWs across the globe and other nationals are still posting comments on various social networks as they wait patiently for the outcome of the police investigation.Another cousin of the victim, Harrish Alagasi, informed Arab News that his cousin is now at Kalinga House, a rented shelter of the embassy where Filipinos women who seek refuge at the embassy are housed.Earlier, a source from the embassy confirmed that the maid was at Kalinga where a nurse was taking care of her. The official said that King Saud Medical City (Al-Shumaisy) where she was brought by the embassy on Sunday allowed the woman to be released as her injuries are healing.“The Philippine Embassy is mandated to help Filipinos. Such an incident could be brought to the embassy immediately for prompt action,” the embassy official said.According to Harrish, the victim has two children in the southern Philippines and was recruited by a certain Amphill Agency.“The pouring of boiling water over a Filipino maid’s body by her employer in Saudi Arabia is circulating around the world,” said OFW Maria Elizabeth Embry adding, “The news has gone viral on the Internet and is indeed horrific and shocking.”However, she wondered why there was no outcry from the Philippine govt. Mission, the official voice of the Philippine government. “Where is the outrage?” she asked saying that there should have been some reaction from the Philippine government at this shocking incident.

Yemen’s interior ministry said on Friday that an al-Qaeda explosives expert was captured during an operation in the southern province of Lahaj.

The man, named Mohammad Hassan Jaafar, alias Awkal, was described as a “prominent expert in making explosive devices within al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penesula.”

Yemen said late on Thursday it had foiled a number of al-Qaeda attacks on government, military and diplomatic premises in the capital Sanaa and arrested several suspected would-be suicide bombers, according to Reuters.

Two weeks ago, the army launched its biggest offensive in nearly two years to try to dislodge the Islamist militant group from its southern strongholds, after a wave of attacks against government officials, security forces, foreigners and energy facilities.

While it has made territorial gains, it has failed to prevent retaliatory strikes, some of them in the heart of the capital, by al Qaeda’s most active wing, the Yemeni-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and its affiliates.

The Interior Ministry said security forces had thwarted “a number of cowardly terrorist operations that al Qaeda had planned in the capital” targeting “vital government establishments, security and military headquarters as well as some foreign embassies.”

It said a number of “suicide terrorist elements” had been arrested before they were able to carry out their attacks in Sanaa, among them “a number of foreigners who came from Syria.”

Security forces also detained five al Qaeda suspects in the southern province of Shabwa, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Al Qaeda wants to establish an Islamic emirate in the Arab world’s poorest state. But the fact that AQAP has used Yemen to launch attacks abroad makes the country, which shares a long border with the world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, an international concern.

The United States, which backs the Yemeni government and military and has mounted regular drone strikes against suspected militants, has closed its embassy in Sanaa to the public because of security fears. After a number of increasingly bold attacks on foreigners, other Western embassies have also tightened security.

Yemen has been beset by turmoil since 2011, when mass protests forced veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

MEXICO CITY – Seven bodies were found inside an SUV abandoned in Tampico, a port city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, officials said Monday.

The victims – four men and three women – have not been identified, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group, or GCT, said in a statement.

The killings are related to conflicts involving “the presumed criminal groups operating in the zone,” said the GCT, a joint federal and state agency.

The bodies were discovered Sunday night inside a green SUV with Tamaulipas tags that was abandoned on a closed street in Tampico.

The federal government said last week it was deploying more security forces units in Tamaulipas and planned to purge the state’s law enforcement agencies in an effort to stop a spike in drug-related violence.

Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced the expanded deployment last Tuesday in the border city of Reynosa, unveiling a “new phase” of the federal security strategy for Tamaulipas aimed at restoring to residents “the peace and safety they deserve.”

Patrols will be stepped up at ports, airports, customs posts, border crossings and highways, with inspections of prisons and nightspots where criminal activities occur being expanded, Osorio Chong said.

The Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas and smuggling routes into the United States for years

Monday, May 19, 2014

When it comes to Muslim persecution of Christians, increasingly the past is a blueprint to the present.According to Sham Times and otherArabic websites, jihadi social media networks posted the above picture of a child sitting on the ground while surrounded by armed men pointing their rifles at him. The caption appearing with the picture, purportedly posted by a supporter of the Free Syrian Army, is “Our youngest hostage from among the hostile sects of Kessab.”

BUENOS AIRES – The Argentine government seized 2,000 kilos (4,405 lbs.) of liquid cocaine bound for Mexico, and arrested eight suspected members of a “narcocriminal gang,” officials said Friday.

Authorities valued the drug consignment at $40 million.

Of the eight under arrest, three had been members of the Argentine Federal Police – one superintendent and two sergeants – Security Secretary Sergio Berni told a press conference.

The investigation leading up to the police operation began in 2012, but the raid was not ordered until two weeks ago when there was “complete certainty that those transformers (where the cocaine was hidden) were ready for shipment,” Berni said.

Also confiscated in the crackdown on drug trafficking were arms, money and “electronic items,” the secretary said

BOGOTA – At least 16 people, most of them children, burned to death and another 14 were injured when a bus caught fire in the northern Colombian town of Fundacion, authorities said.

The police commander for Magdalena province, where the accident occurred, Col. Adan Leon, gave Noticias Caracol the preliminary casualty count while investigators were still examining the scene.

“We are talking of 16 fatalities. We have not finished the inspection,” said Leon, who added that the 14 injured people had been transported to nearby hospitals.

Leon said that the incident occurred when a group of more than 30 children who had left worship service at the local Pentacostal Church boarded the bus to return to their homes and the vehicle “caught fire and resulted in the loss of a number of lives.”

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who on Sunday was focusing on the logistics of wrapping up his re-election campaign on May 25 in Bogota neighborhoods, said on his Twitter account that he deplored the incident.

“We deeply regret accident in Fundacion, Magdalena, where according to latest information at least 15 people died, including children,” the president said.

The death toll could rise, given that Fundacion Mayor Luz Stella Duran told Caracol Radio that 26 people had died.

Meanwhile, National Police commander Gen. Rodolfo Palomino told reporters that the initial hypothesis investigators are considering is that “apparently, a mechanical failure caused the fire inside the bus.”

Nearly 200 murderers, over 400 rapists, and 300 kidnappers in the U.S. illegally were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while awaiting deportation proceedings, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies.

May 12, 2014 11:48 AM

A total of 36,007 criminal illegal immigrants that were being processed for deportation were freed in 2013. Together, they committed nearly 88,000 crimes, according to the report, published Monday.

“I was astonished at not only the huge number of convicted criminals who were freed from ICE custody last year – an average of almost 100 a day — but also at the large number of very serious crimes they had committed,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, in a statement.

ICE gathered the statistics — which include a breakdown by crime — in response to congressional inquiry following another report released earlier this year by the Center of Immigration Studies.

That report, which was based on internal Department of Homeland Security documents, showed that ICE encountered over 193,000 illegal immigrant convicts. Charging documents were issued for 125,000, and nearly 68,000 were released.

That review also found that 870,000 illegal immigrants had been removed from ICE dockets despite being in defiance of the law. The number of illegal aliens targeted for deportation fell 28 percent between 2012 and 2013, according to the documents.

The 36,007 illegal immigrants reported Monday were freed by ICE during the final disposition of their cases. The 68,000 from the previous report were criminals who encountered ICE agents — often in jails — but were released without undergoing deportation proceedings.

The 36,007 were released by bond, parole, unsupervised release, or on their own recognizance.

Besides violent criminals, ICE released nearly 16,000 illegal immigrants convicted of driving under the influence. The report also shows that ICE released nearly 2,700 illegal immigrants convicted of assault, 1,300 convicted for domestic violence, and nearly 1,300 convicted for battery.

“These figures call into question President Obama’s request to Congress for permission to reduce immigration detention capacity by 10 percent in favor of permission to make wider use of experimental alternatives to detention,” reads the report.

In June 2011, the administration began applying “prosecutorial discretion” to many deportation cases. This has led to a 40 percent decrease in the number of deportations.

“Congress should resist further action on immigration reform until the public can be assured that enforcement is more robust and that ICE can better deal with its criminal alien caseload without setting them free in our communities,” said Vaughan in a statement.

Meet the young Iranian exile whose stealth Facebook page—it allows women to post pictures of themselves without their hijabs—has outraged the authorities in Tehran.

The photo that sparked a movement is unassuming: Masih Alinejad sits behind the wheel of her car, sunglasses on, a scarf tied around her neck, smiling broadly. Being in public without a head covering—or hijab—could have landed Alinejad in jail in her homeland of Iran. In publicizing that unmasked moment, what Alinejad calls a “guilty pleasure, she has sparked an online revolution for thousands of Iranian women sick of the the government demanding they cover up.

On May 1, Alinejad posted her scarf-less picture on Facebook, hashtagging it #mystealthyfreedom. “Hijab is being forced on women not only by the Morality Police,” she wrote in the caption of Iran’s religious patrols, “but also out of consideration for family, through wanting to keep a job and because of fear of judgment from others.”

Five more deaths from the MERS coronavirus were announced on Saturday by the Health Ministry bringing the death toll to 168 since September 2012. The ministry said nine more confirmed cases of MERS have been reported in last 24 hours, bringing the total number of infected cases to 629 since the outbreak of the chronic disease. The latest fatalities are three patients from a government hospital in Jeddah, one from Riyadh and one from Madinah. The three victims in Jeddah are a woman, aged 80, and two men, aged 55 and 67. The two other casualties are a 71-year-old man in Riyadh and a 77-year-old man in Madinah. The ministry said that one patient recovered and has been discharged. Meanwhile, scientists leading the fight against the deadly virus say the next critical front will be understanding how the virus behaves in people with milder infections, who may be spreading the illness without being aware they have it. Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected. It is becoming increasingly clear that people can be infected with MERS without developing severe respiratory disease, said Dr. David Swerdlow, who heads the MERS response team at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“You don’t have to be in the intensive care unit with pneumonia to have a case of MERS,” Swerdlow said. “We assume they are less infectious (to others), but we don’t know.”